"I don't want them to." Her voice rose suddenly to a little squeak, betraying her nearness to tears. "I won't never ever do that again. I wanna stay. I wanna stay in this here school. I won't never do it again, I promise." She pressed her face against me.

I stroked her hair, feeling the duck clips under my fingers. "Sheila," I asked, "I never see you cry. Don't you ever feel like it?"

"I don't never cry."

"Why not?"

"Ain't n.o.body can hurt me that ways."

I looked down at her. The cold perception in her statement was fearsome. "What do you mean?"

"Ain't n.o.body can hurt me. They don't know I hurt if I don't cry. So they can't hurt me. Ain't n.o.body can make me cry neither. Not even my Pa when he whips me. Not even Mr. Collins. You seen that. I don't cry even when he hits me with the stick. You seen that, didn't you?"

"Yes, I saw it. But don't you want to cry? Didn't it hurt?"

For a very long moment she did not respond. She took hold of one of my hands in both of hers. "It sort of hurts." She looked up, her eyes unreadable. "Sometimes I do cry a little, at night sometimes. My Pa, he don't come home 'til it be real late sometimes and I have to be by myself and I get scared. Sometimes I cry a little bit; it get wet right here on my eyes. But I make it go away. Crying don't do no good, and it makes me think of Jimmie and my Mama if I cry. It makes me miss them."

"Sometimes it does help."

"It don't never help me. I ain't never gonna cry. Never."

She had turned around so that she straddled my legs and was facing me. I had my arms around her back. She fingered my shirt b.u.t.tons while she talked.

"Do you ever cry?" she asked.

I nodded. "Sometimes. Mostly when I feel bad, I cry. I can't help it much, I just do. But it makes me feel better. Crying is a good thing in a way. It washes out the hurt, if you give it a chance."

She shrugged. "I don't do it."

"Sh.e.l.l, what're we gonna do to fix up what you did in Mrs. Holmes' room?"

Again she shrugged. She feigned involvement in twisting one of my b.u.t.tons.

"I want your ideas. I'm not going to whip you and I don't think suspending you is a good idea either. But we've got to do something. I want your ideas."

"You could make me sit in the quiet corner the rest of the day and you could take away the housekeeping corner for a week or something. You could take away the dolls from me."

"I don't want to punish you. Mr. Collins did that already. I want a way to make it better for Mrs. Holmes. I want to fix up what happened in there."

A pause ensued. "Maybe I could pick it up."

"I think that's a good idea. But what about being sorry? Could you apologize?"

She tugged at the b.u.t.ton. "I don't know."

"Are you sorry?"

She nodded slowly. "I be sorry this here happened."

"Apologizing is a good thing to learn to do. It makes people feel better about you. Shall we practice together saying you're sorry and offering to pick up, so it'll be easier to do? I can be Mrs. Holmes and we'll practice."

Sheila fell against me heavily, pressing her face into my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "I just want you to hold me for a little bit first. My b.u.t.t do be fierce sore and I wanna wait 'til it feels better. I don't wanna think now."

With a smile I clutched her to me and we sat together in the dim light of the book closet, waiting - she for relief for her bottom and the courage for what lay ahead; I for the world to change.

CHAPTER 9.

RESOLYING THAT SITUATION DID NOT TURN OUT to be simple. Sheila and I did go to Mrs. Holmes' room and Sheila apologized and offered to pick up. As I had hoped, Sheila's childlike innocence, her small size, her natural beauty all brought out the motherliness in Mrs. Holmes. She was willing to accept Sheila's attempts to make amends.

On the other hand, it was not so easy with Mr. Collins. This had been the last straw for him, not only for Sheila, but for my cla.s.s. Everything came to a head - including things not even related to Sheila's destructiveness. The two of us simply had different value systems, each of which seemed better in our own eyes. It all came out in a full-scale war after Sheila's incident and finally Ed Somers had to come and mediate. In no uncertain terms Mr. Collins wanted Sheila out of the school. The child was violent, uncontrolled, dangerous and destructive. She frightened the other children with her behavior, as well as the other teachers and the staff. She had caused $700 worth of damage in Mrs. Holmes' room alone. There was a point, he said, when society had the right to protect itself from harm. An identified threat such as this child should not be allowed to ran loose in a public school. She belonged in the state hospital. Why wasn't she there?

I tried to explain Sheila's progress in my room. I explained how it had only taken three days to crack through this child and get her to work productively in the cla.s.sroom. I spoke of her IQ, of her history of abuse and abandonment. I implored Ed to let me keep her. This was just one incident, I said. I'd watch her better after this. I'd give up my own lunch hour if I had to. But give me another chance, I asked. Let me try again. I wouldn't be so care-less.

The mood was grim. Ed explained to me that they had the very real pressure from parents to consider. When word got out from the children in Mrs. Holmes' cla.s.s, parents would call. And the court had arranged for her commitment before I had ever entered the picture. My room was the holding tank. I shouldn't get so involved, Ed said politely, but firmly. It was affecting my better judgment. He smiled sadly. It was nice she was making progress, but that was not why she had been placed with me. She was there to wait until a s.p.a.ce came open at the hospital. That was all.

As I listened to him I could feel the lump in my throat and the stinging in my eyes. I did not want to cry in front of them. I did not want them to know they were getting to me that much. But I could feel the tears starting. My rational side kept urging calmness. They were not being intentionally cruel; indeed, they probably were not being cruel at all. But it felt that way to me. G.o.dd.a.m.n them, what were they doing to me? I was a teacher. My job was to teach. I wasn't a jailer. Or was that all Ed had wanted when he had established my cla.s.s? I was full of recriminations. What had they thought they had given me but a little girl - a scared, hurt, mistreated six-year-old. What was it that was so frightening about her? Now they told me that I didn't have to worry about her; she was only with me to wait. She could have sat in that chair of hers for however many months it took for the s.p.a.ce in the state hospital to come through, and then she could leave. I had obviously misunderstood the matter. I had thought I was supposed to be her teacher.

Ed leaned forward resting his elbows on the table and blowing into his hands. He tried to rea.s.sure me, telling me not to get upset. He was embarra.s.sed that the situation was making me cry and for a moment I was pleased he was. I wanted everyone as unhappy as I. But the moment pa.s.sed and the gloom settled over all of us.

I left the room still tearful, went directly to my car and drove home. Feeling bitter and resentful, I feared I would need more than "Star Trek" to calm me that evening. My idealism had taken a mighty blow. I had learned some people were not even worth $700.

As always, Chad proved the calm center in my storm. Listening to me rage, he shook his head good-naturedly. Go to bed, he advised, it wasn't so bad as it seemed. Despite my feelings, it wasn't me against the world. It'd come out in the end, everything always does. Not in a mood to be placated, I shut myself in the bathroom and sobbed through a forty-five-minute shower. Chad was still sitting in the living room pulling a string for the cat when I emerged. Chad smiled. And then I smiled. I wasn't happy, but I was resigned.

It did not turn out so badly as I had antic.i.p.ated. An education had to be provided for every child and I was at that moment Sheila's only source of education. In compromise, Ed told Mr. Collins that he could have an extra lunch aide solely to supervise my room and that Sheila was never under any circ.u.mstances to leave my room except under my direct supervision. The matter was at least temporarily settled.

Despite the furor over Sheila's placement, things were going smoothly in cla.s.s. We were becoming a group again, adjusting to Sheila's being with us. February had dawned cold and crisp with a groundhog's promise of six more weeks of winter. Sheila was fitting in and we were quite happily twelve. I appreciated those unexpected days of peace because they were rare in our cla.s.s.

Academically, Sheila was plunging ahead. I could hardly find enough to keep her agile mind busy. I had dropped the paperwork altogether, conceding her the victory, although I had to admit still thinking about it. Whitney, Anton and I tested her orally and had discussions with her over what she was doing. She was an avid reader, consuming books faster than I could find them. I was thankful for this new interest because without the paperwork, which makes up a good share of each child's academic day, she finished her a.s.signments rapidly.

Socially Sheila was making slower progress, but it was steady. She and Sarah had become friends and were beginning to share the typical pleasures of small girls' friendships. I also a.s.signed Sheila to help Susannah Joy to learn her colors. This had a multiple effect: it gave me a much-needed helper; it occupied Sheila's extra time; it gave her responsibility; and it helped Sheila learn the finer points of an interpersonal relationship. An added benefit was the boost to Sheila's self-confidence. She was elated to be on the giving end for once and have someone need her. Some evenings after school she would busily make materials and carry on long earnest discussions with Anton or me about things she could do with Susannah to help Susie learn. Watching her, I always wanted to laugh, wondering if I looked like that to someone watching me. But she took the job with such innocent seriousness that I contained myself.

Sheila was beginning to grow away from needing to follow me around all day long. She still watched me often and would sit nearby if given a choice, but she did not need physical contact all the time. On bad days when things had gone wrong before she came to school, or when the other kids gave her a hard time, or even when I reprimanded her, it was not unusual to feel her hand go through my belt and for a while once more, she would move around the room with me while I worked. I did not discourage it; I felt she needed the security of knowing I was not going to leave her. The line was fine between dependence and overdependence, but I had noticed that most of my kids went through a period of intense involvement and attachment in the beginning. It seemed to be a natural phase and if things progressed right, the child outgrew the behavior, becoming secure enough in his relationships that he no longer needed such tangible evidence of caring. So it was with Sheila.

One good thing came out of the incident with Mrs. Holmes' room. I tracked down Sheila's father. After school one evening in early February Anton and I piled into the car and drove out to the migrant camp. Sheila and her father lived in a small, tarpaper shack beside the railroad tracks.

He was a big man, over six feet tall, heavy-set with a huge belly that slopped over his belt, only one tooth on the bottom and very evil-smelling breath. When we arrived he was carrying a can of beer and was already quite drunk.

Anton forged ahead into the tiny house. It was only one room really, divided by a curtain. A lumpy brown couch was at one end and a bed was at the other. Otherwise there was no furniture. The place reeked of stale urine.

Sheila's father came into the house behind us and motioned us to sit on the couch. Sheila was crouched in a far corner by the bed, her eyes round and wild. She had failed to acknowledge either Anton or me, but sat folded in upon herself as she had in the first days of school. I mentioned that perhaps it would be best if Sheila were not present, as I needed to discuss some things with her father that might be painful for her to listen to.

He shook his head and flapped a hand in Sheila's direction. "She's gotta stay in that corner. You can't trust that kid out of your sight for five minutes. She tried to set fire to a place down the road the other night. If I don't keep her in, the police will be here again." He went on to give us the details.

"She ain't really my child,"' he explained, offering Anton a beer. "That b.i.t.c.h of a woman who's her mother, that's her b.a.s.t.a.r.d. She ain't my child and you can tell it. Just look at her. And the kid don't have a decent bone in her body. I haven't in all my born days seen a child like that one for causing trouble."

Anton and I listened speechlessly. I was mortified for her sake that Sheila was in the room. If he told her these things every day, no wonder she had such a low opinion of herself. At least, though, it was private. To tell it to us in front of her - I was horrified even to be there. It was like some scene out of a poorly written novel. Anton made an effort to refute the man's view but that only made him angry with us. So we let him talk, fearful of bringing repercussions on Sheila if we upset him.

"Now Jimmie, he was my boy. Better little boy you never seen than my Jimmie. And that b.i.t.c.h, she took him. Just upped and took him right out from under my nose, she did. And what did she do? She leaves this little b.a.s.t.a.r.d." He sighed. "I told her if one more school person came out here about her, I wouldn't forget it."

"I didn't come to say anything bad," I said quickly. "She's doing a nice job in our room."

He snorted. "She should. With a cla.s.s full of crazies, she should know how to act. Jesus Christ, woman, I'm at my wit's end with that child."

The conversation never improved. My blood was icy with horror and I wished I could shrink up and fall through a crack in the floor to save Sheila from the humiliation of having people she cared about hear his words. But I couldn't, nor could I stop him. Her father went on and on. I tried to tell him that Sheila was a gifted child with marvelous intelligence. That was not in his world. What did she need with that, he asked, it'd only give her more of a chance to think up trouble. Finally the conversation turned back to his beloved, lost Jimmie. He began to cry, big tears rolling over his fat cheeks. Where, oh where, had Jimmie been taken, and why had he been left with this little bogie that he did not even believe was his child?

In a detached way I felt sorry for the man. I think he did love the boy and the loss must have been difficult. In his tangled, immature way he seemed to see Sheila as somehow to blame for losing Jimmie. If she hadn't been so impossible perhaps his woman would have stayed. He did not know what to do with Sheila or himself. So he lost himself in a couple six-packs of beer and wept to two complete strangers about a life thirty years out of control.

As wretched as Sheila's life looked, I knew we would have a difficult time getting her removed from her father's care. This was a community with a huge population of losers. The migrants, the penitentiary, the state hospital, all combined to make a town within a town, one that was so large that the parent community could not meet its needs. There were not enough social workers and foster homes and welfare checks to sort out the disasters and repair the damage. Only the most severely abused children were removed from their homes because there was no place to put the others. Yet I felt compelled to ask her father if he had considered voluntary foster placement since he was having such a hard time.

My question was a mistake. From tears, he exploded into a rage, leaping up and waving his hands at me. Who was I to suggest he give his child up? What kind of person was I? He had never accepted help from anyone before; he was man enough to solve his own problems without any help from me, thank you. With that he demanded that Anton and I leave his house immediately. Filled with frustration and angry sorrow, we left hoping we had not endangered Sheila. It was a grim visit and I wished I had never gone.

Afterwards, I rode across the migrant camp to Anton's. He too lived in little more than a hut. There were three rooms which he shared with his wife and two young sons. It seemed pitifully inadequate to someone with my middle-cla.s.s upbringing, but it was clean and well-kept. The Spartan furniture was offset by handmade rugs and needlepoint pillows. A large crucifix adorned a wall in the main room. Anton's wife was cheerful and welcoming, even though she spoke no English and I spoke no Spanish. His boys were eager, chattery little fellows who climbed all over me asking about the cla.s.sroom their daddy had told them of. They were so verbal and spirited despite their youth that they seemed to be geniuses in my eyes. I had grown so used to viewing my kids as normal. The five of us shared three c.o.kes and a bowl of corn chips while Anton diffidently asked about the possibilities of his going back to school and earning a teaching degree. He did not even have a high school diploma yet, although he eagerly told me that he was studying for his General Equivalency Diploma. I had not previously heard about these secret dreams he had been nursing. He had grown to love the children in our cla.s.s, in spite of his initial reluctance, and someday he hoped he might teach in a cla.s.s of his own. I was touched by his dreams, because that indeed was what I feared they were. I doubted he was aware of all the time and money involved in attaining that level of education. But watching his wife beam as her husband talked of such great plans and seeing the little boys dance at the thought that their daddy was going to be a real teacher and someday they might live in a real house and have bicycles, I did not mention the drawbacks. Besides, my emotions had not fully recovered and my mind still wandered across to the other side of the camp, wondering what was happening in the shack by the railroad tracks.

CHAPTER 10.

DURING THE TWO HOURS THAT SHEILA AND I had alone together, after school, I had begun reading aloud to her. Although she was perfectly capable of reading most of the books herself, I wanted to provide her with some extra closeness as well as share some of my favorite books with her. We also needed to talk about some of the things in the books, I found out, because Sheila had had such a deprived childhood that she did not understand many things. This was not because she did not know what the words meant, but because she had no idea how they applied to real life.

For instance, in Charlotte's Web Sheila puzzled the longest time over why the little girl wanted to keep the runt pig, Wilbur, in the first place. He was a runt after all, the poorest of the litter. In Sheila's mind it was perfectly understandable that the father did not want to keep him. I explained that Fern loved him because he was tiny and could not help being a runt. But Sheila could not conceptualize that. She lived strictly by the law of survival of the fittest.

So I read to her, holding her on my lap as we sat in the reading corner surrounded by pillows. When she did not understand a word or a pa.s.sage, we talked about it, often wandering off into long discussions about the way things were. I was fascinated by this girl who possessed a child's innocence in reasoning and a child's directness, but an adult's comprehension. Her clear-eyed perception of things was in many ways frightening because it was so often nakedly right. But the child's way she put some things together made me laugh.

One night I brought in a copy of The Little Prince. "Hey Sheil," I called to her. "I've got a book to share with you."

She came running across the room, leaping squarely onto my stomach and s.n.a.t.c.hing the book from my hands. Carefully she inspected all the pictures before we settled down to read. Once started, she sat motionless, her fingers gripping the cloth of my jeans.

The Little Prince is a short book and within half an hour I was almost halfway through it. When we came to the part about the fox she became even more intent. I could feel her bony little hips in my lap as she wiggled to become more comfortable.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But, after some thought, he added: "What does that mean - 'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

" 'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world...

"My life is very monotonous," he said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: You see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please-tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me..."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me - like that - in the gra.s.s. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me every day..."

Sheila put her hand on the page. "Read that again, okay?"

I reread the section. She twisted around in my lap to look at me and for a long time locked me in her gaze. "That be what you do, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"That's what you done with me, huh? Tamed me."

I smiled.

"It be just like this book says, remember? I do be so scared and I run in the gym and then you come in and you sit on the floor. Remember that? And I peed my pants, remember? I be so scared. I think you gonna whip me fierce bad 'cause I done so much wrong that day. But you sit on the floor. And you come a little closer and a little closer. You was taming me, huh?"

I smiled in disbelief. "Yeah, I guess maybe I was."

"You tame me. Just like the little prince tames the fox. Just like you tamed me. And now I be special to you, huh? Just like the fox."

"Yeah, you're special all right, Sh.e.l.l."

She turned back around, settling into my lap again. "Read the rest of it."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near- "Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."